


Fitting the Cage

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abuse, Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Caretaking, Domestic, F/M, Family, Food, Heritage and ancestry, Human Trafficking, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Violence, dubious consent due to mental health, nine noble virtues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:40:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: Mike marks a girl for trafficking, but as he gets to know her, he decides he wants her instead. Erwin pulls some strings to help him get his hands on her, and after several weeks Erwin calls in repayment of that favour, asking Mike to have his Nanaba play a crucial role in a dangerous plan.
Relationships: Nanaba/Mike Zacharias
Comments: 29
Kudos: 26





	1. Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> welcome, sit down, let's have some dark brew fic together. i'll be putting warnings in the beginning notes of every chapter as well as updating the tags when appropriate. some things in this story are not spelled out with explicit writing, so please read with care, but if you have any confusions/questions, please ask.
> 
> updates on saturdays!
> 
> i originally posted the first chapter of this work on 8 july but took it down about twenty minutes later. it's all the same, i'm just tussling with this monster. some good advice as encouraged me to go ahead and start putting it up as chapters instead of a giant oneshot.

When Mike arrives at the diner somewhere after two in the morning, he can see a couple of agents scattered around the dive, naturally blending in with the coincidental civilians hanging around. He slides into a booth across from his mark.

The girl is shaking down to her fingertips, watching him with round, vigilant eyes. If only she knew that he were the least of her worries.

“Did you order?” He asks casually, lounging into the blue pleather to make himself appear relaxed and likeable. In their past interactions, his loose posture has won over her trust, and he wants that same effect now.

The girl shakes her head.

“Huh,” he fills the air between them, picking up the menu in front of him on the table and turning over a few of the sticky, laminated pages. There’s ten ways to get waffles, a buildable breakfast platter, and some larger meals.

As soon as he puts down the menu, a tired waiter decides to grace them with his presence. “Finally ready?” He asks, his drawling question implying that the girl has been here for a while.

“Yep, that’s my fault,” Mike apologises. He orders two platters with potatoes, bacon, eggs, and extra toast, then a hot chocolate for the girl and black coffee for himself. The whole time he’s speaking, he can feel her eyes on him, yet as soon as the waiter departs with a promise of speed, the girl averts her gaze.

“How long they had you?” He decides to ask, cutting to the chase. Erwin’s already let him know everything leading up to Mike getting the call with permission to attempt to woo the girl; otherwise, she’s on the shipment headed out tomorrow night. 

She shakes her head slowly, looking down. As she sits, her frame is curling in upon itself, wanting to appear small. 

“I was told two days,” he offers. “Did they feed you?”

Again, another shake of her head.

Some ten minutes later when their order is steaming on the table in front of them, Mike isn’t sure if she’ll warm up to him in the timeframe they’ve been given. The girl won’t look directly at him, though he can see her studying him with her peripheral vision; she keeps her head down, or to the side, and keeps her voice very, very low, like she shouldn’t be speaking at all. 

“You either come with me by the end of the meal or you get sent to some market somewhere,” he tells her flat out, hoping that the truth will urge her cooperation.

The girl lifts the hot chocolate to her mouth, licking at the whipped cream before taking a shy sip. 

“I know things don’t seem like they can get worse than what you been through, but I promise you, the last couple days been kinder than you would ever get again in your life.” Mike doesn’t mean to scare her, but he can see that he has. Her dropped cup clatters loudly on the table top but doesn’t topple, doesn’t spill a single drop. 

“Please,” she whispers.

“Please?”

“I…”

Mike waits patiently for her to say something, but it seems like she was only startled into speaking, and slowly, her walls rise. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulls out a cute little zipper wallet, just large enough to hold a few cards and maybe some folded bills. It was a gift from Erwin, salvaged from the girl when she was first abducted, saved from the usual burning of all personal items. It serves to convey Erwin’s good wishes for Mike’s endeavor. He places it on the table, watching familiarity flash through her eyes.

“You know what happens after you leave here, if you don’t leave with me,” he says, not really asking. Surely, she knows why she was snatched from her car in the parking lot that night. Right now, she is simply one in the queue for transport, one mark of profit. It’s Erwin’s favour and Mike’s interest that are saving her. 

The girl crosses her arms over her chest, once more curling in. “You’ll... are you going to…?” But she doesn’t finish her question, reaching out to grab the handle of her mug and find some comfort in the hot chocolate once again. While she sips, Mike gives in to his hunger, taking up his fork and knife to devour his late, late dinner. After a few minutes, she begins to uncurl. Hopefully his relaxed body language is coaxing her into feelings of safety. 

Mike is just finishing scraping the last forkful of potatoes into his mouth when she picks up her utensils and sates some of the hunger he can see written in the visible bones of her hands and wrists. Beneath her sweatshirt, she must only be a wisp. Now it’s his turn to sip from his mug and watch her eat; she gets through a small portion of the platter before setting her fork down again.

“Are you going to kill me?” She whispers finally. Maybe the little bit of food gave her some courage.

“No.” Mike keeps his response short, firm, and decided. Her death is exactly what he’s trying to prevent; it doesn’t by any means make him a good guy, but he wants to instill some confidence in the girl, get her to agree to go with him. 

“Okay.” The girl grabs her fork, sets it down, then grabs it again, fisting it nervously before letting it drop with a quiet clinking onto the ceramic plate. “What… will you do?”

“That’s one hell of an open question.” Mike picks up the girl’s wallet, slowly unzipping it. The first card he pulls out is her driver’s license. Continuing with the low voice that they’ve both been using, he reads off her information and calculates her age in his head. “What’s that make you, twenty-nine?”

The girl nods. Honestly, she looks much younger than that, he could’ve easily taken a handful of years off.

“God bless your parents for giving you a pretty name, but if you’re gonna be mine, I’m giving you a new one.” 

“I’ll be yours?” Her tone is hard to place-- if he doesn’t call it oddly hopeful.

“I said I wouldn’t kill you, so that must mean I’m keeping you, don’t it?” 

She bites her bottom lip, smiling at the corners. Mike is surprised by this reaction, but doesn’t show it. He doesn’t have to guess at what’s making her grin, because she whispers, “I remember seeing you a lot. You and a few others.”

“Now you know what we were there looking for,” Mike offers his own friendly smile as he puts her license back in her wallet and zips it closed. Even if he doesn’t know what to make of her expression, at least she’s talking.

“How many others did you take?”

“From there? Just you.” Mike spreads his hands. “You were the only one pitiful enough.”

The waiter comes by, dropping off a fresh hot chocolate and refilling Mike’s coffee. As soon as he’s gone, Mike continues, “I don’t think you’re pitiful, just lost.”

“And you’re going to save me?”

Her boldness tastes… refreshing. He lets his pleasure show in the upturn of his lips as he says, “I am saving you, in at least one way.”

“I could still choose not to go with you.”

“You could,” he acknowledges. They sit in a moment of silence, sizing one another up. This girl is very clearly prey and no threat to him-- no threat except to become a worthless debt, if she really decides to face her fate in the trafficking rivers instead of letting him take her home. 

“But I won’t,” she eventually devolges, picking up her fork and knife again, cutting up her bacon into tiny pieces as a nervous outlet rather than for the purpose of eating. Looking down, she explains, “You say you won’t kill me. Isn’t that the best I can hope for now? Not to die, alone, forgotten? You say you are saving me, but I don’t think you’re letting me free. You’re saving me for yourself.” The bacon thoroughly demolished, she turns those destructive attentions onto her eggs, breaking the yolk and spilling gold onto her plate. “Whatever you would do to me, I don’t think it would be so bad. What do you want to do to me?”

Mike allows her question to hang in the air, once again too broad for him to entertain a serious answer. When she understands that he really won’t give her information in general terms, the girl whispers, “Will you hurt me?”

Lying doesn’t do well when he’s trying to give her honesty. “Yes,” Mike tells her with certainty. He knows he will hurt her. It’s only fair that she knows it, too.

“Why?”

“For many reasons.”

“For fun?”

“I can’t say yet.”

“Will you… will you  _ use _ me?”

“Yes.” 

“Even if I’m not willing?”

An unhesitant, firm nod gets the point across.

“But you’ll... take care of me, since you’re saving me?” The girl doesn’t ask this like a genuine inquiry, but rather like connecting the dots.

“Yes.”

By now, her eggs look like a gooey emulsion of their former selves, yet she keeps tearing them apart. For a few more minutes he watches, pondering over her little inquisition and her reactions to his blunt answers.

“Why?” She finally asks again, the utensils falling from her hands. Upon closer inspection, he can see that the tremor is returning. “Why are you doing this to me? If you want to save me, then why will you treat me this way?”

The girl’s whispers barely reach his ears, but the panicked undertone is loud and clear. Mike is not afraid of her causing a scene; Erwin relayed that she was, in the entire process of the last few days, very obedient and exceedingly quiet, sustained by a flavour of self-preservation that many abductees do not inherently possess. 

Despite her legitimate question, Mike does not answer directly. What could she understand from his words? No, the truth is a lesson that she will only come to learn through time and intimacy and his guiding hands. 

“That’s for you to find out.” 

“And if,” she begins, but then bites her mouth closed so hard that her teeth leave dents below her lip. For the briefest of moments, he thinks she might launch into hyperventilation, but her chest expands with a deep breath and she finds her grounding again, enough to ask, “And if I say you can’t scare me?”

“I’m not trying to scare you right now.”

“I meant… that whatever you do to me, you can’t scare me.”

Mike blows out an impressed little whistle at her courageous display, but the noise seems to upset her in some way and she tenses up like she’s waiting for a fight. Giving her a second to collect herself, he looks around until he can wave down their waiter for the check, and pays it then and there so that they can leave. It’s been a long enough day for him, and he’s still got to get her to his home and locked up for the night. Sensing that her time is running out, the girl quickly reaches out, grabbing Mike’s left hand as soon as they’re alone.

“You can’t scare me,” she says with even less confidence now; shame coats her shaky words. “Because I… I’ve fantasised about… bad things. And I want bad things.” 

“Bad things, huh?” Mike can’t keep the amusement out of his voice. 

“Please don’t tease me.” The hand she has still wrapped around his slackens. “I know this isn’t…  _ I know _ reality from fantasy.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

“If this is my life now, let me have it,” the girl murmurs, shyly looking up at him for a heartbeat before dropping her eyes to his hand beneath hers. Mike keeps looking right at her, intently watching her mouth as she says, “I want it.”

He won’t laugh at her, but she has no idea what’s coming to her. 

Whatever little fantasies the girl has masturbated to, they won’t even compare to what he will put her through. Still, it’s good for him to have her willingly descending into his clutches, if it means that housebreaking her will be that much easier. Mike doesn’t respond to her statement, silently rising and holding out his hand with expectation. The girl follows suit quickly, placing her smaller palm against his, allowing herself to be led out of the diner.

She walks along the sidewalk good and quiet beside him, keeping pace with his longer strides. Mike had parked his truck two blocks away to leave some space between himself and the diner, and now he’s grateful for the cool night air. When they arrive at his vehicle, she makes no complaint as he bundles her into the back passenger side so that she’ll be diagonal and easier to keep an eye on while he drives. He gets a glimpse of that obedience Erwin had talked about as she follows his every order until he’s pulling her into his home and locking the door behind them.

Hesitation only bleeds between them as Mike leads the way to his bathroom and commands her to strip completely, visible tension budding as he sits on the closed toilet lid and tells her to sit on the floor in front of him. Slowly, warily, she undresses, not even relaxing when Mike turns his attention away from her to dig through a vanity drawer.

“Gonna cut that hair,” he grunts, stabbing his thumb on the sharp tip of the scissors before grabbing them. Upon inspection, he finds no blood. “Then we’ll shower.”

The girl doesn’t verbally answer, but Mike enjoys the way she sighs heavily, like it scares her a little bit to be so close to him while so naked. But it’s not her body that’s endangered right now, so he doesn’t pay it any mind. She carefully sits on the tiles in front of him and then scoots back until his knees are cradling her shoulders. Taking his hairbrush from beside the sink, he gets started, letting down her tresses from a french braid and roughly combing his fingers through just to appreciate the silken feel for the first and only time. There’s a lot of grease from the last few days, and he thinks that her hair may have been in need of a wash when she was picked up, judging by how slick the strands are beneath his fingers. It also looks like the girl has kept it braided this entire time, so it comes down smoothly and he’s able to get at it with fair ease.

Mike thinks about the girl’s temperament heretofore and the crumbs of extra information about her from Erwin. She’s not a complete stranger, thanks to his time scouting her out for trafficking-- there had been some qualities about her, something alluring that made him want to pull her aside and get to know her. Something that made him want to own her; something that promises she will be so,  _ so _ good for him, that she will please him, that he will be the possessor of her very soul.

The girl’s a fighter, albeit not a very good one. Conversations past have alerted him to her forward-thinking, thoughts and ideas that have put her apart from the masses. She’s not entirely lost, but he can see that she is losing her way, losing parts of herself to exhaustion running years past a healthy level. Losing that beautiful brain to the destructive roars of anxiety and whatever else mentally fucks her up, struggles that she hasn’t been willing to talk about.

And maybe it was the joke she made laughing just a few days ago--  _ “I wish I could just stop having to be a person for a while, you know?” _

Not just that-- there was a queer willing eagerness within her that he couldn’t put his finger on, and it told him that she wouldn’t be a bad investment.

“There’s an Old Norse name: Nanna. It means ‘courageous.’” Mike pulls the brush through her hair a few more times for good measure. “It fits this brave face you’re putting forward, doesn’t it?”

“If you think so.”

He keeps her on the floor between his legs until all the non-existent knots are cleared from her blonde, and then he gathers it back into a low ponytail. With the same shears he uses on his own hair, Mike removes the lengths from her, enjoying her beautiful sniffles as they mingle with the metallic hissing of the scissors. Cracks are beginning to show in her façade as reality sets in for her, and he relishes it. With quick care, Mike makes sure that she won’t be able to tie her hair back at the nape, giving her a crude cut up to her ears, a proper slave’s hairstyle. 

“I think Nanaba will do,” he decides as he drops her ponytail into the wastebin, plastic crinkling causing her to flinch. She doesn’t deserve the name Nanna in its fullest glory, but a softened variation will do. He says it again, testing the way it undulates on his tongue, “Nanaba.”

“Yes?” She timidly answers, shed tears thick in her voice. It’s such a pretty noise from her mouth, nasal and tortured. 

“Get up, let’s shower.” Mike stands, stepping over her to brush off excess hair. 

“Both of us?”

Mike fixes her with a pointed look. “Do you wanna get clean or not? I know they didn’t let you bathe.”

The girl, his new Nanaba, nods. That little bit of reprimand in his tone lights a fire under her bottom, and she doesn’t hesitate or talk back again. 

Mike was right, she’s nothing but a whisper. She’s long and bony in most places, but womanhood is undeniable with the slope of her wider frame at the hips even if those pelvic bones lead into her hungry waist, the outline of her ribs making him pause. She hadn’t seemed so thin like this when he was scouting her. Maybe it’s the difference in lighting. Washing unceremoniously, Mike catalogues the current state of her body, a reference that will be necessary in determining how well she’s housebreaking. No privacy is granted as they dry off and brush their teeth— she wrinkles her nose at having to use his toothbrush for tonight— before he tosses a sweatshirt over her head and takes her toward bed.

“I can feed you a big breakfast,” he offers, taking out a pair of cuffs he keeps in his nightstand. “What all you usually eat?”

“Mostly cereal.” Nanaba looks up at him and then the restraints he’s preparing. “Are those for me?”

“You bet.” The handcuffs clink pleasantly in his hands as he gets down on one knee and pats the floor. His girl gets the hint immediately, lowering her body to puddle on the bedside carpet. “Hands,” he demands gently, taking one little wrist at a time and locking them into cuffs so that the chain loops around the footpost of his bed. There’s no way for her to get free like this, especially with those spindly muscles and his own weight combined with the solid wood of the frame. Down here, she’ll be securely unthreatening to his salvaging of sleep.

Mike continues to kneel beside her for another moment, a passive onlooker as she adjusts her position to something comfortable. For another moment, he allows himself to indulge, thinking about how good she looks spread out on the floor beneath him, and then he grabs the folded Easter quilt at the end of his bed, shaking it out and draping it over her. Like swaddling an anxious child, Mike tucks the quilt nice and tight against her sides, telling her, “Try and sleep as best you can, Nanaba.”

“Okay,” she whispers and it sounds like promising,  _ I will. _

Getting off his knees, he climbs into bed and once comfortable, lowers his hand down to pet his thrall a few times before withdrawing. In the new absence of his touch, Mike says, “Goodnight.”

Her voice is small and bubbling with some strange positivity when she bids, “Night.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "i know reality from fantasy" hmmm okay nana


	2. Rules and Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New home adjustments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's still saturday so.... this is a two-for-one weekend, because this is an exposition chapter. see y'all next week!  
>  **warnings:** mike and erwin conspire about mike doing a bad thing very soon.

She’s not superior to him and no way in _ hell _ is she equal to him, but she’s not entirely inferior. His Nanaba is worth saving by the barest margin. There are those in life that are meant to be masters and those that are meant to be slaves; the former make up a slim minority within which Mike undeniably belongs. 

He regards his thrall over breakfast, thinking to himself that she’s handling all of this remarkably well. A few days ago, she was snatched away from her life, drugged unconscious, held captive in a cage, and transported from Atlanta to the CSRA. Any instability in the girl stems from within, deeply rooted rather than newly sprouted, so he can guess that she’s not yet processed what’s happened. He only knows enough about her from his scouting as what makes her a good mark-- how alone she is, how unmissed she would be if she disappeared. Any other knowledge he gained from his brief glimpses of her are cursory, snatched and stolen snippets of conversation in the middle of her shift at work.

According to Erwin’s report, no one touched her while she was being held. She wasn’t stripped down and forcefully bathed like the other marks, as evident by her wearing her original clothes to the diner last night when Mike picked her up. She was tossed into a small cage and made to wait. But just because no one touched her, doesn’t mean that she was unseeing of other crimes committed. Marks are at the mercy of the handlers, whose first job is to cause some additional distress to break and weed out the weakest of the group. It’s very likely that his girl witnessed a garden variety of assaults.

Nanaba gets to the bottom of her bowl, so Mike picks up the box of Lucky Charms and pours in another serving for her. 

“I’m not asking a lot of you,” he says after explaining some basic house rules and behavioural expectations. She’s on a tight leash for now, no wiggle room. “Do what I tell you. Read some books. Stay in the house. Not that bad, is it? Especially since you’d’ve been shipped out from Charleston to god knows where.”

His thrall brings another spoonful of cereal to her mouth and nods as she crunches on sweetened toasted oat and marshmallows. Someday,  _ someday, _ she will be the queen of their domestic sphere, and she will rule over their home, but for now she is his lowly slave, his thrall, and he will control every aspect of her life until she proves, through little bits of choice and power, that she can handle responsibility. Until she proves herself a master of the nine virtues, he will be her Master.

“It’s important you know your place as a woman and as  _ my _ woman. Not wife, not yet. You’ll be my property until you can prove yourself.”

Nanaba raises her head and asks, around a mouthful of breakfast, “And if I don’t?”

“Remember how I said I wouldn’t kill you?”

She nods.

“All bets are off if you can’t keep your shit together. You’ll be out to whoever wants to buy you.” When she stops chewing, Mike folds his hands together and leans closer, softening his approach. “Listen, I’m not expecting you to be perfect, but I ain’t putting up with bullshit. I’m not so mean that I don’t forgive. You’d know if you were getting close to the edge of my patience.”

That pence of reassurance that he’s not heartless does very little to encourage her to finish the bowl of cereal. Mike can see her struggle around what’s in her mouth, her stomach no doubt a little sour now. This sweet girl has a problem with keeping her anxiety in check, he knows from those snatched conversations; he’ll teach her how to be quiet.

“But tell me, girl.” Mike shifts in his chair, opening his body language up to something less intimidating than he needed to lay down the law. “What do you want from me?”

Even though she’s not eating, she stirs her cereal around for a few moments before lifting her eyes to look his way. “What I want?”

“I’ll feed and clothe you. I wanna know what you like as a reward. Little things, favourite candies, any of that.” 

Mike watches her pick out a little shamrock marshmallow on the tip of her spoon, watches the way her delicate tongue laps out to scoop it up, kitten sweet. He brings his mug of coffee up to sip, wanting her to feel that she can take her time in responding. And she does take that extra time, finally saying a few minutes later, “Can I have my stuff from my apartment?”

“I said little things,” he chastises. 

Nanaba looks his way again and then lowers her gaze, seemingly uninterested now that he’s denied her request.

“I want to reward you when you do well, girl.”

“You think I’ll do well?”

Mike chuckles at her sneaky boldness and puts her in her place by saying, “You will if you wanna stay here.”

A pause. She admits defeat with a low, “I like mugs.”

“Mugs. Got it.”

His girl doesn’t spoon any more cereal into her mouth, her appetite either filled or having vacated. He’s about to tell her to clean up after herself when she looks at him,  _ really _ looks at him, making eye contact.

“Please let me go to my apartment,” she tries again, and this time she sounds genuinely distressed, more upset about this issue than about her kidnapping and indentured servitude. “I’ve got no money in my savings to pay rent—  _ please, _ I’ll do anything, just please let me get some stuff back.” Defeated, Nanaba touches her forehead to the table top. 

Maybe if he humours her request, she will surrender to the inevitable housebreaking much easier. He can’t stay home with her all day, every day; he must return to work within the week, so therefore he needs to be able to leave her alone without having to lock her up and risk any escape. As much as he wants to believe it, last night when she said she wanted this life, he’s waiting for the psychological fallout that comes when reality actually sets in. Even if she thinks she wants this, wants  _ him, _ her desire can change when she’s not wrapped up in a fantasy.

“What kind of things?” Mike asks, thinking this allowance will earn gratitude and obedience.

“Family things, stuff I can’t replace.” Her voice breaks a little on that last part. The plea appeals to his morals, his belief in roots and heritage, and she doesn’t know it but he’s pleased to see that she values these objects enough to beg for the chance to retrieve them. 

Going to her apartment would mean a trip to Atlanta again, likely a turn-and-burn since he doesn’t want to waste an entire day of his weekend there. Five hours roundtrip plus a little extra time navigating neighbourhoods and letting her hurry up and grab some stuff. Even if he let her soak up some final, sentimental moments with her possessions, he’s thinking it’ll be six hours total, tops. He can sacrifice six hours if it means she feels compelled to follow his every order to show her thankfulness.

Still, until then he’ll keep her on her toes. Gruffly, he nonanswers, “Be good and we’ll see, alright?”

“Okay,” she agrees, lifting her head and nodding up at him. Distress and trust are written over her face.

“And finish your cereal.” A couple bowls of Lucky Charms aren’t gonna help her gain weight overnight, but it’s a start. 

;;;

“I don’t know what to make of it.” Mike leans back, letting his head rest on the top of the bench, two drinks in and tongue finally loosening up. “It’s been  _ four days _ and not a problem. She’s just so fucking good!”

Across the table, Erwin smirks at Mike’s exasperation, raising his tumbler of whiskey for a miniscule sip of the alcohol, always a slow drinker, appreciating the taste.

“Quite the rare jewel you’ve taken,” Erwin offers after a few moments. 

Mike sips his beer, contemplating his complaints. It’s not meant to serve as a humble brag, because Mike had  _ looked forward _ to the ability to break his thrall just a little, tiny bit. But her behaviour gives no room for him to toy with her or punish her. Harming her repeatedly without meaning will not do him any good, it will only drive her away and break her spirit: he must have reason to hurt her and she’s been giving him reason to buy a novelty mug instead. So as much as he enjoys the ease of adjusting to this new permanent person in his life, his blood is bubbling with the desire to extract violence upon his Nanaba. 

“Would it be so bad,” Erwin ponders aloud, “for her to just be good?”

“No,” Mike says slowly, shakes his head. Somehow, it’s been a relief, even if it leaves him itching with need. “No. But I want to hurt her.”

“Then hurt her,” Erwin tells him.

“But--”

“You want to hurt her. Then,” and Erwin punctuates the words with a small pause between each,  _ “hurt _ her.”

Mike has to voice his worry. “I don’t want to completely break her.”

“You can quench your thirst without breaking her. A few cracks will not ruin her,” Erwin explains. “What is it that you want?”

Mike sips his beer, suddenly finding himself struggling to voice his desires, and it’s entirely foolish. This is Erwin, his best friend, his longest friend. Erwin knows him inside and out, and there is no need for him to fear any judgement. They’re in  _ human trafficking _ together for fuck’s sake, so he knows there is nothing he could say that would cause surprise. He finds himself able to disclose, “I want to make her cry. That’s the goal. And how I get there, I don’t care.”

“I see,” Erwin smirks. “Have you had sex with her yet?”

“I… haven’t.”

Erwin hums in a way that makes Mike swallow, then asks, “Why not?”

He doesn’t want to voice it, how badly he wants to take the girl against her will. And he doesn’t have to actually say anything, with Erwin filling the space between them. “You want to rape her, don’t you, Mike?”

It’s a near thing to keep the groan out of his gusting sigh of admission. “I want to, but I’ve never done that before.”

“Do you need help?”

He chuckles once, the cut off sound too blunt in his ears. “Help would be appreciated.”

“Mm.” With a partially concealed smile, Erwin susurrates, “Unleash your cruelest desires upon her, Mike.”

“That’s the thing, Erwin.” Mike picks at the label of his beer. All this self-doubt is unlike him but he wants to be careful with this girl. If he damages her beyond repair, then he will either be saddled with a broken husk or have to release her to the flowing traffic rivers. He knows what happens to the people that break as soon as they’re taken, the way they’re the most disposable. He has seen disposables euthanised for even a lack of interest. It would be a death sentence. She would eventually be put down if he broke her with this. 

“I’ve told you before, any creature can be tamed with food and affection.” Erwin leans in. “Never hesitate to rightfully exert power over someone lesser than you. Do whatever you want to her, and then spoil her a little bit. Not so much that she expects it, but a special, one-time treat.”

“She wants to go to Atlanta to get some of her things,” Mike offers.

“That would work  _ perfectly,” _ Erwin purrs, allowing Mike to hear some of his excitement. “It’s best to get this all out of the way now, you know, before she’s entirely settled in your home. Have this as part of her housebreaking.”

Mike likes that Erwin makes it sound so easy, so trivial, like it’s not a complex human psyche that he’s got to keep from unravelling. This is why he came to Erwin after all, to receive some much needed advice and put his mind at ease. He tips up his beer, content to watch the other tavern patrons going about their nights, much in the same way he’d watched Nanaba when he was picking out potential victims with which to fill his quota. 

In his selfishness, he’s changed her life,  _ claimed  _ her life as something that should belong to him. It’s his right to do so because she is lesser than him, but he still wants to be careful with her.

The first morning together, after she’d begged for the opportunity to retrieve some possessions, she’d followed his every order to exacting perfection. If she didn’t understand something, then she immediately sought clarification so that she could carry out the task. Every day since has followed suit. Even on the taut leash, she heels perfectly for him, following each command and obeying each order. It’s some of that same self-preservation Erwin had described when she’d been in the custody of handlers, stuffed in a cage and fearing for her life. And it very well might be that her compliance is a ruse for him to let his guard down... yet it’s a little too genuine. Her open expressions are a little too honest-- he’d be able to see if she were faking it. So it’s not so hard now for Mike to believe that she truly wants this.

Sure, wanting and consenting are not the same. She might’ve never consented to slavery and she might only want it because she recognises that she has no other options. Yet, her actions, her eagerness, lends him the dangerous idea that he could’ve had her even if he’d not made her a mark. It’s not like he can date, though, with no casual way to bring up padding his income by selling off abducted people. There was no other choice for him than to snatch her from her life and force her hand into his own. This is the only way he can have her and protect himself at the same time. After all, what free woman might willingly subjugate herself to his dominance  _ and  _ tolerate his side occupation? None. He has no choice. If he wants a wife, he has to train one in mind and body, and his Nanaba is a good candidate.

Besides, when her housebreaking is complete, it won’t matter. When she’s securely attached to him, loyal to him, a little less inferior to him, their sloppy origin won’t matter. Love will grow from the crater that fear’s comet creates.

;;;

When Mike arrives home, his sweet thrall greets him, readily asking if he needs anything. He interrupts her question with a hand cupping her sharp jaw so that he can get a good look at the bags beneath her disquiet eyes. This was her first evening alone while Mike had his weekly routine drink with Erwin, and it comes after his first day back to work. No doubt her anxiety’s been gnawing, putting her ill at ease.

Nanaba bites her words into her bottom lip, her eyes landing somewhere on his throat. Within those blue eyes, he also sees that she wants him to kiss her. It’d be easy to tease her, inform her that her masturbatory fantasies of bad things will come true, but that kind of cruelty doesn’t fit his plan. Instead, he draws her close and kisses her forehead with such delicate care that she sighs into him, melting wax beneath his lips.

“Get me a glass of ice water,” he simply requests, stepping back, breaking the spell. 

After he showers off the tavern atmosphere, he finds his glass of water on his bedside table and his thrall already tucked in on the floor for the night. Her wrists are in place, one on either side of the footpost with the cuffs already done. If his girl’s been apprehensively waiting for his return then she’s definitely all tuckered out, so no wonder she put herself to bed. Mike watches her as he downs the water in several parched gulps, then kneels to make sure the handcuffs are good and tight. He gets the quilt nice and fitted around his thrall’s body, making her a tiny sausage, and then gets into bed, hoping to pursue his own winks. 


	3. Housebroken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanaba settles into life belonging to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mike does his bad thing. consent is pretty dubious in this fic but this is definitely a rape, and not explicitly written. anal sex, physical abuse, implied vaginal sex at the end.

Mike takes neither excuses nor shortcuts in his pursuit of her tears, because she owes him this fulfillment of his desires. He won’t shatter her; he’ll hold them at the cusp of the cliff, safe on stable land, and he’ll dangle her over the chasm but he will not let her fall. He wants to hurt her and so hurt her he will. After some enlightenment with Erwin, Mike takes to softly manipulating her, coaxing out a tell for whether or not she wants to fuck him. Back before all of this, their flirtation had been mutual, and he stokes those embers again with kind kisses to her cheeks and forehead in praise. It’s clear that she wouldn’t say  _ no _ if he took her to bed, but Mike doesn’t want that. He wants her against her will, he wants her in  _ pain _ and he knows what he needs to do now.

It tugs so pleasurably at his heart, thinking of coming to her while she’s in the midst of a mundane assigned chore, and turning her perception upside down with a few calculated cracks to her reality. She looks happy, wrist-deep in the soapy water, plates from breakfast dripping on the drying rack. He finally got her to eat an entire two eggs with toast, a big improvement from sugary cereal. 

And now this is his one turn for unearned violence; he will hurt her tremendously now, for no reason except his own delight, and he won’t harm her again until she misbehaves. 

“Girl.”

A startle ripples up her spine and she tenses, looking over her shoulder at him. He still hasn’t given her a bra, and her little nipples poke through his shirt on her body. “Yes?” She asks, already on edge by the severity of his tone when she’s done nothing wrong. 

“Get here.”

She pauses in following that order, and he can practically see it on her face, her hesitation in the realisation of his sudden turn. He’s given her submission nothing but his gentleness; this sharpness is a new laceration. 

“Now!” He shouts, relishing the powerful feelings surging up through him at the command. 

Her fear is alive in that instant as she turns and does her best to seek his good graces with obedience. But there’s no amount of obedience right now that will save her from what he has planned, and his anticipatory heart pounds in excitement. He wants to tear her to shreds and eat her alive, lick his fingers clean and pick his teeth with her bones. 

She stops just within arms length, unknowingly at the perfect distance. Mike grabs hold of her chin with his left hand, and her mouth opens in a gasp just for him to crash the back of his right hand into her jaw and mouth. Blood comes up to the surface, her bottom lip busted on a tooth and red painted over her teeth. A bruise is staking an aggressive claim on the abused skin where he made impact. 

It’s beautiful, the way she’s left twisted away from him, the force so  _ moving _ that she can’t face him. 

“I-I,” she stutters out, an unbelieving hand coming up to her mouth, drawing back rusty fingertips. “I didn’t do  _ anything,” _ she gasps, and it sounds so heart wrenching, he wants so much  _ more _ of her pain. 

And a vicious part of him roars at her words, so he lets it take hold of him, giving in to that anger because it is not up to her to decide her proper treatment. She is his  _ property, _ his thrall, his debt; he owns her and he will do exactly as he wants with her. Right now, his desires are what he’s visiting upon her. It is not her sole purpose to be beaten and abused, but it however is  _ exactly _ her sole purpose to serve him in whatever ways he dictates. Pity for her that right now, her submission necessitates that she  _ take _ his cruelty.

Mike’s right hand shoots out, latching around her throat and pushing downward, forcing her to the floor. Nanaba lands on her knees and ass, clutching at her chest, the pretty sound of petrified crying beginning to ring off from the cabinets around her.

“Please, tell me what’s wrong!” She gasps, inhuman fear overtaking her usually collected demeanor. For the entire time she’s been with him, she has kept herself somehow poised. Not the epitome of mature grace, but no one would be able to tell she’s been kidnapped, not with the ease in which she glides through the days he lays out for her.

Mike finally opens his mouth to answer her begging. He sings,  _ “Oh, _ nothing.”

If she looked scared before, an absolute mask of horror slides over her features as she realises that there is no bargaining right now.

Without any sense of haste, Mike unfastens his belt and pulls it from his jeans, folding the soft leather over in half, holding the ends together in his left hand. “Now, my girl,” and she flinches at the softness of his tone, “I wanna have some fun with you.”

“Fun?” She squeaks like a little mouse.

“Fun,” he agrees, then stoops, lowering himself to her level. “Didn’t you say you fantasised about bad things?”

It’s not to make a joke of her for that courageous tidbit of information she shared with him at the diner, but he can tell immediately that she feels mocked by his word choice. 

“Come on, girl,  _ smile,” _ he croons, cupping her chin in his right hand while slapping the curved loop of the belt against the kitchen floor, making her jump within his grasp. “I’m gonna do some very  _ bad _ things to you.”

Her face scrunches up and her eyes well with tears, overflowing, fat drops leading trails down her cheeks. He swipes his thumb to smear them. God, he wants to fucking make her cry even more now that he’s got a taste for it. He should have done this earlier, gotten some carnal pleasure wrung from the scraps of her humanity. Because he can see it in her face, she won’t beg him to stop, not yet. She’ll let him do what he wants.

And he does  _ exactly  _ what he wants.

Hungry, he kicks her down prostrate and beats the flesh of her backside open with the belt. Her pain awakens the ravenous wolf hiding within his skin and he  _ consumes; _ gluttonous, he gorges. Emboldened by her wails, he sinks his teeth deep, tossing her upper body over the kitchen counter, forcing her to bend in half with his left hand squeezing around the back of her neck. With spitty right hand fingers, he barely stretches her asshole enough for the tip of his cock, and the only lube she gets is what coats the condom. Excitement spurred on by watery whimpers and dazzling cries, Mike gluts himself on the pleasure of her demise.

The whole ordeal is finished within ten minutes but she curls up on a corner of the kitchen floor and weeps for an hour before he orders her to shower away the blood and shit smeared over her thighs. He waits in the bathroom while she cleans her body, ears listening intently for the stifled sounds of her discomfort, closing his eyes and enjoying the melody. When she’s done, he watches her dry, marvelling at his handy work painting black bruises all over her ass and thighs, a bouquet of split welts all carnal bright red from the cleansing hot water. His thrall’s face is swollen from crying. It’s  _ beautiful. _

“Come here, girl,” he murmurs, a sugary slur. Her steps are timid but she obeys, and he cups her jaw gently between his hands so that he can pull them together for a kiss. It’s their first proper kiss, mouth on mouth, and he can feel her shaking beneath his lips, frightened through her bones. Overall it’s a momentary affair, and when he pulls back, he witnesses a crystalline teardrop escape the outer corner of her sad, blue eyes.

He can see himself loving her if she keeps being so pretty and sweet.

Cradling her skull with one hand, Mike leads her into the bedroom and sits her at the foot of his bed, joyed by her grimace of pain, then turns around to the chest of drawers on the opposite wall. He picks up the little paper bag and takes it to her, dropping it into her surprised hands. 

“Open it,” he orders when she only stares at it. Nanaba looks up at him as if questioning his words, so he nods. 

Her bony hand clutches the handle of the bunny mug as she pulls it out, looking at it with thinly veiled confusion. 

“A reward for your first week with me,” he informs her. 

She only looks at it, twisting it around to see the white bunny silhouettes painted onto the hunter green background, all glossy ceramic. After a few moments, she holds the mug against her chest with both hands and mumbles, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now get yourself dressed so we can go to your apartment.”

That seems to do the trick in snapping her out of her shock. There’s more emotion in her voice than he’s yet heard when she asks, “My apartment?”

“So you can get your stuff.” Mike steps before her and fits his fingers around the rim of the mug, carefully prying it away to rest it on the dresser until later, paper bag too. “You gonna be a good girl for me, right, Nanaba? All week, you showed me you can be good, so keep being sweet for me, okay?”

“I will,” she promises, looking at his chest. He pinches her chin between thumb and forefinger, directing her eyes back up to his. 

“Do you still want this life?” 

Her eyes widen and she’s frozen, deer in the headlights. Mike can practically hear the gears whirring in her head, trying to rationalise between desire and better judgement, between reality and fantasy, trying to cipher out what would be the answer he prefers. Of course, his own face is passive, ungiving. He wants to know  _ her _ answer, not be sweet-talked. 

His Nanaba settles on asking, “You’re not done with me?”

He levels her with a stern gaze, loving the way she shies back a few centimeters, though her chin is still held in his fingers. “You really  _ think _ I raped your pretty little ass because I’m done with you?”

Careful not to extract herself from his grip, she shakes her head, gaze wavering. She tucks her lips between her teeth and breathes in deeply through her nose, no doubt reprimanded by his tone. Nanaba swallows, unspoken words obviously needing to be said but tasting bitter on her tongue. 

Mike strokes her chin with his thumb, a coaxing coo, “What is it, girl?”

Within her mouth, her tongue mimes those words that she banishes with a quiet, “Nothing.”

Mike lets her get dressed and half an hour later, they’re on interstate twenty heading west. In the passenger seat beside him, his thrall curls up, knees in her chest, her feet tucked one on top of the other by the center console. With every bump in the road, she hisses and whines, no doubt the potholes lighting her backside in new misery with each jostling. He lets her be, all the way until they pass the first rest stop, and then he lays his hand, open and palm up, on her knees. Nanaba looks first at his hand, then at him, and cautiously fits her own hand into his. Mike wraps his fingers around it, squeezing once, and keeps that bridge of contact between them as the miles tally up.

Atlanta is busy this afternoon, but he gets them over to her part of the city with relative ease. She doesn’t ask why he knows the way to her neighbourhood, knows which car is hers in the parking lot that creates a perimeter around her building, doesn’t ask how he knows the code to her apartment door. She asks him nothing, waiting patiently at his elbow until he steps aside and she enters her former domicile. He follows her into the matchbox tiny flat, closes the door. He knows that she is proud of this place, despite its appearance suggesting it deserves to be condemned, willing to always work overtime to ensure that she could afford living without a roommate.

Nanaba looks around the living room and the small open kitchenette on her left, then turns to Mike and asks, “Has anyone been here?”

“Anyone I know?”

She nods.

“No.” 

Nanaba looks more at ease by this, and then she turns right, limping toward the only bedroom.  _ Mike’s _ been in here, before she was taken, but she doesn’t know that. He follows her to her bedroom, not for any precaution, but just to watch, to see what she brings with her, what was worth begging for. The evidence of his violence in her strained movements gives him joy. 

From beneath her bed, she pulls out a vintage suitcase, something scores of years old and easily worth thousands of dollars for its pristine condition. Mike watches as she packs the suitcase full of odd knickknacks and leather-bound photo albums and hardcover fabric diaries and antique jewellry. His Nanaba is placing value on her heritage and this fact satisfies him. After family relics are gathered, she turns to her personal items, and only then does Mike interfere. Requests for garments are denied without explanation, as well as a few other replaceable things, but he allows her to slide in her laptop with a promise that she can use it when she earns the privilege. From her closet, she pulls a massive quilt, and even though it is twice the size of the suitcase, Mike willingly takes it over his arm to carry it back to the vehicle. Other than that, he can’t see much attachment within her final gaze over her possessions, and they leave the apartment without fanfare. 

But before he takes her back home, he needs to know what thoughts are tumbling through her delicate little brain. She held herself back when he asked several hours ago, so gently brushing his fingertips along her throat, he repeats his inquiry. “Do you still want this life?”

Nanaba looks at him,  _ really _ looks at him in the eyes. They’re sitting in the parking space, idling, procrastinating the one hundred and sixty miles home. 

Mike looks right back at her. When she looks away, he calls her name, the one her parents chose. Her shoulders bunch up defensively and she murmurs, “Don’t call me that.”

“Answer my question, honey. Do you want this life?”

She looks at the quilt where it rests in her lap, one finger flicking at a loose stitch. Mike reaches out to tip her chin up and over, making her look at him again. Without any more prodding, she admits, “Yes… I do.”

But Mike challenges her, whispering sweetly, “You could leave me. Stay here and keep living like I don’t exist. Do you want that?”

Mike can see the briefest temptation in her eyes, something animal natural, the desire to pick up where she left off when she was snatched away, the desire for normalcy and bone-grinding minimum wage routine. But he can also see her convictions, a resolute decision to stick to her words. 

“No,” his thrall slowly breathes. “I want to stay with you.”

“I’d let you go if you wanted,” he promises, inching closer. “No questions asked: you can get outta the car and go home.”

She shakes her head, mirroring him, leaning closer until her nose brushes his chin. 

“You can forget me, girl.”

“Are you done with me?” Courage blooms, fed on her fear— fear of abandonment, Mike thinks, remembering snippets of conversation at her workplace. “Raped me and now you’re throwing me away?” 

Mike lets his lips graze her forehead. “No, my girl.”

“I want this,” Nanaba whispers, barely audible. When he dips his head to kiss her, she willingly opens, letting him taste her, letting him drink up her determination. 

He can feel it between their mouths like they’re sharing a secret spoken in Tongues: she truly,  _ very _ truly wants him, wants the life he’s offering her, wants to be his good girl. Before, she said that she knew reality from fantasy; what a brave little lie she told. Pulling back, Mike cradles her skull and keeps nipping at her neck as he says, “Because you fantasised about bad things.”

“Yes,” she whimpers, pulling away the barest bit until Mike plants a smooch on the tip of her nose, calming right back into his pliant girl. “You’re my dream man.”

“Do you like being hurt?”

“I… yes.”

“You’re not going to be able to sit straight for a week,” he muses. 

“I like it,” she whispers. “Every twinge of pain, all I think about is you.”

“Are you going to keep being so good for me?” He asks. Words are one thing, but he’s betting that she’ll easily prove her fidelity. Still, he wants to _ hear _ that promise.

“I will.” She closes her eyes and snakes her hands up to gather around his neck, embracing him, pulling herself against him, pressing her face into his throat like seeking comfort in his thumping jugular. Breath caught on consonants, she asks, “What’s your name?”

This is information he’s been withholding, waiting until he’s got a steady grip on the shape of her, and he doesn’t mind giving her another reward today. Pressing his lips right to the shell of her ear, he tells her, “Mike Zacharias.”

She hums and shyly confesses into his skin, “I want to be  _ yours, _ Mike.”

Erwin was right. It might not be so bad for her to just be  _ good, _ to be easy. It might end up being that Mike enjoys this path more than rigorous training.

;;;

With respect to menstruation, Mike knows that it is  _ always  _ better to be prepared than to be snuck up on. Even in the midst of grappling with the epiphany that his Nanaba is exceedingly better than he could’ve hoped for, he must pause and load her up into his truck and take her on a shopping run. She’s been cooped up inside for nearly ten days, this being her second outing since he brought her home, and she sits up front with big blue eyes taking in the new Central Savannah River Area scenery. It’s an evening trip, after Mike’s gotten back from work and they’ve eaten dinner, so he smirks thinking about getting a sweet treat when this is all said and done. 

He drives to the supercenter on the corner of Deans Bride and interstate five-twenty, taking a spot in the back of the carpark and holding Nanaba’s hand as they walk to the entrance. As soon as they get in, he takes them left to the health and beauty aisles, explaining to his thrall that she can purchase whatever she wants from this section as long as it stays within a set budget. 

After she’s filled a handcart with toiletries and a few cosmetics, the latter of which he will need to set some rules about, Mike takes her to the office supply area, browsing until he finds a shelf of haphazardly tossed together planners, bright yellow clearance stickers indicating the price cut. It’s that awkward point at the end of winter, before the academic planners come out but seemingly too late to start a new yearly planner. Still, Mike grabs a plain baby blue daily and a packet of rainbow papermates.

Nanaba is his dutiful little helper at the self-checkout, and all-in-all the trip takes no more than fifteen minutes. On the long way back south to his home, he stops at the drive-in on Tobacco and gets them a milkshake to share. At bedtime, he doesn’t handcuff her to the footpost; Mike draws her against his bosom and lets her fall asleep watching television with him in his bed. 

She’s still under his thumb and therefore without much choice, so everyday Mike tells her what to make for dinner and how to make it. Nothing fancy, but something satisfying nonetheless, moreso with another person to share the meal. He discovers she’s got a fear of cooking for others, so he starts desensitising that anxiety, pulling up a stool to watch her when she’s in the kitchen, praising her twice as much with every dish. 

He’d thought that adjusting to having a thrall would have its fair share of growing pains, but so far his girl has been exceptionally easy. Now that he knows how much she wants this life with him, he can see that her obedience is far from a farce; she  _ genuinely _ wants to please him, not as a ploy to get him comfortable so that she can escape, but because in the core of her soul she is a servant. Maybe this is the part of her that whispered to his interest as he marked her for the quota. A deeper, subconscious part of himself must’ve recognised this deeper part of her, because she’s a perfect fit for him.

Perhaps one of the cutest surprises comes between them in a quiet moment, asking to brush his hair as a blush splatters over her cheeks. It hangs around his shoulders, a straight mop of wheat blonde-brown, and when she puts it in a twist every night, it bounces with gentle waves the next day. If she’s got a yearning for her own shorn lengths, she doesn’t say anything, instead turning her attention to his crown. It humours him, sitting between her knees like she sat between his knees on that very first night. He always hooks an arm around her thigh and rubs it while she wields the brush.

Those cosmetics she purchased make a debut, too, and it gives Mike the opportunity to set some new rules. Besides, he enjoys her bare face, clean skin-- she always wore too much makeup back before all of this. Yet, he allows her the concession that she can apply it however she desires  _ only _ when they’ll be leaving the house, as long as she removes it immediately upon return. For her, those occurrences are still rare, so he can enjoy her skin uninterrupted.

Altogether, his Nanaba housebreaks well, adjusting nicely to life belonging to him. Mike’s in a senior position in his family’s construction company, so he takes to overseeing some of the less time-consuming renovations while his thrall is getting her feet beneath her. There’s a stumble in her steps when he transitions back to full days, but it takes just a few gentle kisses to get her confessing that she misses him, and only a few heated ones to placate her. 

The last bruises from Mike’s violent assault disappear before he needs to punish her, and even then, it’s nothing like what he dealt her  _ that _ morning. Somewhere in his soul, he feels their connection like a tangible thread with which they push and pull one another. It’s uncanny, that as his bloodlust begins to bubble, she begins to need stricter and stricter reminders before he’s finally bending her in half over the dining table and lashing her backside with the same leather belt. Never more than five or six licks; a morsel of satisfaction for him. But he’s finding that he likes her body in ways other than pure pain.

If he lays her in his sheets and kisses down her body in worship, he can get her whimpering adjacent to weeping, so ticklish, so  _ sensitive. _ His thrall’s not a virgin, but she’s untended, unused to receiving the precious attentions he laps upon her with his tongue. Mike kisses and nips and prays at all of her sharp corners, cataloguing as they soften, judging the depth of her new cushioning with his teeth. A set meal schedule and his authoritative orders to finish her food keep her from whittling back down to tired bones. His guiding hand on her life balms the anxiety  _ just enough _ to keep her stomach untwisted.

And  _ all _ of his authoritative orders go obeyed. Novelty mugs invest in real estate in his cupboard, so much that he builds her a display for the dining room. Maybe it’s his sadism, but Mike puts it in the corner she faces whenever he’s bent her over the table for punishment. 

;;;

The final frost date passes, so Mike comes home one afternoon with a few bags of garden soil and some freshly sprouted seedlings from the crunchy, all organic nursery on the northern side of the city. When he gets into the house, he finds his thrall’s planner open on the kitchen counter, today’s tasks all obediently crossed out, and writes in a series of outdoor chores for tomorrow. Rain is on the forecast later in the week; it’ll be good to get all this done beforehand. As he’s writing those objectives, he hears the toilet flush and the sink run upstairs, and then his sweet girl is making her appearance, rushing to embrace him.

“Mike!”

“Hey, honey.” Mike wraps his arms around her shoulders and buries his nose in her hair, glad to finally be home with her. All day, he’s been thinking that it’s time to fill this girl with his love, and he’s thinking tonight is as good a night as any, especially with the way just the  _ sight _ of her now stirs his desire. And she hasn’t slept on the floor since that first time he pulled her into bed and put her to sleep with some television. Every evening, they shower and crawl between the sheets, his exploratory mouth on her touch-starved skin. But he doesn’t want to wait hours for this-- his longing brings him head over heels, slavering for some intimacy deep, warm, and wet.

Dinner has yet to be prepared. He could devour her instead, his hunger set on living flesh and release, set on sinking his teeth into consummation.

“Sweet girl.” Mike cups her skull between both of his hands, tipping her head all the way back, nuzzling into the space below her chin. “Let’s get out of these clothes.”

“Yeah,” comes her breathless agreement. 

Mike hasn’t been inside his girl since he raped her, and his exuberant animal lust awakens, craving her cunt. Only with self-denial does he get them into the bedroom without laying her down on the floor along the way. Nanaba sheds her clothing neatly, gathering it over the back of the armchair, then taking up Mike’s discarded garments and dropping them into the hamper. He sits on the foot of the bed and snags her hand, guiding her up to straddle his lap. Nothing separates them, skin on skin. 

With his left hand, he cups her right cheek, bringing his lips against her ear to promise, “I’m gonna be inside you, girl.”

Her thighs tighten around him. 

“Oh?” Mike presses his nose into her cheek, grinning, teasing, “Do you want that?”

He can feel her nod, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. Mike grasps her hips, digging his fingers in roughly, hiking her up until her sex brushes his abdomen and she’s looking down at him. Ordinarily, he towers over her. The change in view is refreshing, making him feel like he’s the one serving her for a change.

“Ride me, girl,” he tells her, freeing one hand to ghost his digits over her excruciatingly soft entrance. “You remember how big I am.”

A shudder ripples through her spine, ending with her toes curling. Of course, having his cock in her ass would exaggerate the size, but he knows he’s too large to take to the hilt in that sweet pussy during their first time.  _ This, _ he wants to give her slowly, make her feel good, shake her apart with gratification, use this to graft her like a rib in his side. 

“Can I…” Nanaba moans when he presses his thumb firmly against her clit. 

“Yes, my girl?” Mike smirks, kissing her cheek, slipping an entire finger inside of her while he continues pressing with his thumb. She shakes her head, body tensing. 

“Mike,” she whimpers, rocking her hips, welcoming his second finger with wet fervour and an open, gasping mouth. “I…”

“Tell me, honey,” he coos, finding the nearest patch of her flushing skin and biting her, breaking vessels, her spilling blood trapped on display. 

Again she shakes her head, and he wonders if this, too, is a tell of her pleasure. Inside of her, he works to excite her hunger, working up her appetite. Those gorgeous weeping-adjacent whimpers mix with the sopped purling of his fingers, making music to his ears.

“Please,” he whispers, breathy, sounding an absolute slave to her,  _ “please, _ tell me, honey, please.”

Nanaba lowers her mouth to his ear and murmurs her secret shyly, “I love you.”

Turning his head, Mike ensnares her with a kiss, swallowing the mewl she releases when he kisses with more teeth than tongue. This is exactly what he wants, how he wants her to feel. The flowers of his devotion blossoming to bear fruit. When the sensations of his greed overwhelm her and she rips away from him, he comforts her, lures her back, using his free hand to stroke through her hair and pull her close once more. 

“I know you do,” he promises her sweetly. 

“You do?” Her voice breaks the littlest bit. 

“I do,” Mike assures his thrall. 

Further descending into his clutches, his Nanaba allows her body to be marked with nipping proof of his love, affections with a sadistic filter, offering her weeping as thanks for the privilege of belonging to him. She cries when he breaks the thin skin over her heart, her tears feeding his arousal, both their fingers working in unison to roll down the condom; two souls aching for solacing intimacy, they are together soothed. 

  
  
  



	4. Reshuffling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mild shake-up in the home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i’m a bit late; i decided to split this 6k chapter, so this fic will probably end up being 8 or 9 in total. here’s some setup now and i’m promising some action next week.

“I’ve found a lovely little one,” Erwin eventually says into his glass. Around their booth, a billiards match is nearing its end, the participants trading focus for more jubilant conversation, but Erwin is just loud enough for Mike’s ears only. They’ve had little chance to catch up in the last several weeks, with Mike pouring all of his extra time lately into his thrall.

“For yourself?” Mike brings the rim of his beer to his mouth but doesn’t drink. 

“Yes and no.” Erwin glances at the table between them. A heaviness creeps into the air. “I’m afraid I must call upon that debt, Mike.”

He finally takes a sip of his beer, turning over Erwin’s statement in his mind. At home, his sweet thrall, his girl, _ the debt, _ will be waiting for him.

“What do you need, Erwin?”

“I need Nanaba’s help.”

Mike lets his bottle fall to the table, heavily clunking on the thick wood, unimpeded by the coaster. He’s hesitant to involve her  _ at all _ in this, his protectiveness for the girl bolstered by a little jealousy. As much as he wants to end this conversation before it begins, he knows that Erwin is not asking lightly. After all, it was Erwin who pulled the strings to withdraw his girl from the pool selected for trafficking, allowing Mike to pay the price for her directly; so Mike knows that he does owe Erwin something.

“Alright,” he sighs out. “Tell me about your little one.”

The detective leans forward and murmurs, “It’s Levi Ackerman.”

“Jesus  _ fuck, _ Erwin!” Mike grumbles, fist tightening around his bottle. “Are you serious?”

Erwin spreads his hands in placation. “I know, I know.”

“And what do you need my girl for?”

“Running messages, mostly.”

Mike raises a brow and gives Erwin a sideways glance. “So you’ve  _ met _ the little bastard already?”

“Yes,” Erwin states matter-of-fact, leaning in with a secretive smile. “He’s trying to find a reason to be in the CSRA, but until then, we think it’s better if our wires aren’t  _ too _ crossed.”

“You don’t wanna be seen together.”

“Exactly.”

Mike sighs. “And you want Nanaba to... what? Deliver love letters?”

“And gather information on him.”

“She don’t know anything about intel, Erwin.”

“No, but she knows Atlanta, and she’s too sweet to lie. She’ll tell me the truth.”

“She’ll tell you the truth because she’s half in love with you.”

Erwin laughs, a little too boisterous for their tight-lipped conversation. Mike uses that moment to cool his head, knowing that now isn’t the time to get overly possessive. He takes a sip of his beer, the bottle coming back down with a too-heavy  _ thunk. _

“Will you… let me scout out this guy first, before I trust him around her?”

“Of course,” Erwin agrees, tone insinuating that he would have nothing but Mike’s absolute go-ahead with this, even though there’s no room to argue with the debt between them. 

“And if I think it’s too dangerous for her?”

“I’m sure you’ll find the situation to be within your limits,” Erwin says. It’s not a finite withdrawal of the favour; looks like his girl’s gonna get roped into this one way or another. 

“Watch her for a weekend for me, let me get some eyes on the fella. Then I’ll let you turn her into your messenger,” Mike acquiesces. Truthfully, he knows that Erwin cares for him, and by extension cares for Nanaba, as any detriment that might befall his thrall might as well harm him, too. Yet, the thought of sending his girl out of their home so soon, sending her on errands at Erwin’s request-- Mike worries for her mental stability. And Levi Ackerman is not a man to belong to anyone, but if he’s entertaining the idea of Erwin Smith… Mike doesn’t know what to think of it all. He’s going to need a few more answers out of the devil himself.

“Thank you, Mike,” Erwin murmurs, smiling, even though he doesn’t have to say it. This is  _ the debt _ Mike owes Erwin after all, for helping him get his hands on Nanaba. 

A few minutes later, just as the party near them is moving on, Erwin muses, “You’re looking less stressed.”

Mike chuckles, shaking his head with a private grin. “Girl’s working wonders.”

“I’m glad,” Erwin says, looking down into his glass. “After you told me how eager she is to please you, I was afraid you wouldn’t have any fun with her.”

“Housebreaking’s been easy. If I want, I can hurt her and know she’s not gonna run.” More than that, though— Mike thinks he’s sniffing out a masochistic streak in his honey girl, and she says that if it pleases him to hurt her body, then she wants him to inflict pain without reservation. With those sentiments, there’s really not a chance of her leaving.

“Good, you’ve got a loyal one.”

Mike nods along, thinking of how it sometimes feels that Nanaba is more afraid to be discarded than to be harmed, and how that specific fear feasts on her anxiety and makes her nearly desperate to please him. She’s thin-skinned and entirely tender for him. A little spanking will set her to rights with ease. But Mike knows his girl’s in no danger of being thrown away; what Erwin said before is true, that she is a rare jewel. He’d never find another like her, and even after just a month, Mike is thinking that it’s Nanaba or bust. Which is why it’s even more important that he judge the situation with Ackerman for himself.

Mike extends the invitation, “You should come over and have dinner before you watch her.”

“I’d love that,” Erwin purrs. He’s seen Nanaba exactly two times: once as a welfare checkup when she was caged and in the handlers’ care, and then again after she healed from her rape, when he met them for coffee at the river walk. She’s a little infatuated with Erwin and his manners and his clean cut suits and detective work. Whereas Mike leaves his hair long and his beard trimmed close, clean-shaven Erwin has a crisp undercut that he thinks Nanaba might want to copy. He’ll indulge her if she asks but he won’t offer. 

“I know she’ll be happy to see you.”

“Is she still afraid of the kitchen?”

“Not so much, so long as she’s alone. She doesn’t like me watching too much, but she’s got a crush on you so I’ll bet she’ll wanna impress you.”

“So sweet,” Erwin murmurs, giving Mike a soft expression. As much as he knows it shouldn’t, it lights a matchstick of jealousy in his chest; he blows it out as quickly as it sparks to life. 

“I’ll let her know you’re coming over, but I won’t tell her about staying with you. Don’t want to get her too riled up and anxious.”

“I understand,” Erwin pleasantly agrees. “I look forward to a lovely family dinner.”

;;;

His honey is waiting up for him in a mostly dark house. She sits at the drafting table with a reading lamp. To her, he calls out, “Hey, girl.”

She turns a smile to him, bookmarking her page and closing the heavy history volume. She’ll be done with this one soon-- they’ll go to the specialty book seller and get another tome for her to devour more information on her ancestry. When she fully understands where her family comes from, the lands which sustained them for millennia before their voyage to the new world, then Mike will introduce her to his own family’s lineage.

Mike holds his hand out to her, beckoning, “Let me have you, honey, please.”

In their bed, he pours the uncertainties of Erwin’s request into perfectly shaped red handprints all over her skin, grabbing her too tightly as they fuck, afraid that if he doesn’t crush her with his grip, he won’t be able to hold onto her. She shivers for him, pain melting into pleasure that gushes around his cock, mewling for him,  _ begging _ for him, singing out  _ his name _ like a saint in church. 

It’s so good to be inside his girl, united with his girl. When their bodies are one. He takes her from behind, driving in each solid inch of his cock until she’s impaled on him, her slickness clouding over all of his fears, smoothing him into a lover seeking to please. Her period will start tomorrow; they enjoy the mingling of their fluids, the egg from ovulation long expelled and having taken any chance of pregnancy with it. It’s so sweet to be inside his honey girl, just her, just him, just for a little while. 

;;;

All Mike needs to do is look at his watch, and he will know exactly what Nanaba is doing. All throughout the day, he imagines her task as he checks the time, knowing precisely how she is moving through her chores. The routine he’s mapping out for her is nonnegotiable in its perimeters, although it has plenty of room to potentially move around within should Mike deem her ready. As it is now, she has earned a smidgen of control over the kitchen, but she’s still on a taut leash held by Mike’s own hand until she proves that she can handle even more responsibility. The last several weeks have been bliss sectioned by sparse punishments or pain given just for the sake of making her hurt, but even his sadism is a rare indulgence. Training her is hardly an issue; he gives her a little love and she laps up all his instruction like a starved kitten. 

She’s a sweet girl, true confectioner sugar disposition, flowing and sticky on his fingers, his honey. A lovely little one like this, with too much pressure would break beyond repair. Mike doesn’t have too many manipulative tendencies, so a soft girl like her, squishy and eager to please him— she is  _ perfect. _ If he had a cage too small for her, she would still do her best to fit, seeking nothing but his approval. When he  _ needs _ to discipline her, though, he’s taken to using that leather belt to give her a good, old fashioned spanking; barely two licks in, snot and tears run down her face, always so open with her agony. Her suffering has got to be the most beautiful thing he’s ever witnessed in life, bar none, and he savours every moment of her misery.

From the sofa, Mike looks over to her back where she’s seated at the drafting table in the sunniest corner of the living room. Her hair is getting long, the bottom strands beginning to brush the back of her neck. It’ll need to be trimmed again, and he momentarily wonders if she’ll request an undercut.

“Girl.”

Nanaba looks over her shoulder. “Yes?”

Wordlessly, he gestures  _ come here _ with a few fingers, and quickly she’s settling onto the floor at his feet. Mike pets the top of her head, smoothing his hand over frizzy flyaways in repetitive motions. “We will have a guest tomorrow.”

She tucks her lips between her teeth in a displeased expression, looking away. It’s been in her planner since earlier this week, so he knows she’s seen the note he made. 

“It’s only Erwin.”

“I know,” she mutters, lowering her forehead to rest on his kneecap. “But… Can’t we go out instead?”

“No, my girl,” Mike says firmly. This fear of cooking for others needs to be dealt with; her skills have rapidly improved and she has no shame in preparing foods for her Master, so it’s time that he help her get over this silly phobia. He places his palm on the top of her head and grips her skull with his fingers, turning her to look at him. “I invited him to our home for an evening together. You will cook and give him generous hospitality, because that is what good wives do. And until you prove yourself to be a good wife, you will remain my slave.”

Nanaba looks wholly away, but a rough shake gets her eyes back on him. 

“Do you want to be my good wife?” Mike asks with a small hint of mocking malice. 

“Yes,” she whispers, gracefully taking a hit below the belt. “I do.”

Mike relaxes his hold, letting his hand slide down to tip her chin up. “I want that, too. So listen to me, do what I say.”

“I will.”

“Who takes care of you?”

“You,” she whispers.

“We only have each other,” he reminds her. “Be good for me and I’ll be good to you.”

“I know,” she breathes. “I will. I’ll be good.”

;;;

The next night, Mike can feel the anxiety radiating in waves off of his Nanaba, but the most important thing is her willingness to comply with his orders. He gets home and finds her already in the kitchen, going back over the recipes for the family meal; she must be feeling such pressure, wanting not only to please Mike but also Erwin. There’s even a covered bowl with the dough for moravian sugar cake rising off to the side-- a sure winner in Mike’s eyes, proof that his thrall is trying her absolute hardest. Taking pity on her, Mike pulls down a new bottle of wine from a high cupboard and pours her a mugfull, setting it on the kitchen island beside the cookbook with a stern order of, “Drink this  _ slowly, _ honey.”

Upon closer inspection, he finds his Nanaba’s hands shaking, so he reaches out and takes hold of both, bringing them to his mouth and lavishing pecks on the knuckles.

“He’ll enjoy it,” Mike reassures her. Getting her to relax and cook for him has had its own difficulties, but she spends all of her time with him. He’s familiar. Erwin is still such a  _ stranger, _ despite the little crush she harbours. It’s like every impression must be as positive as possible. Well, Mike thinks to himself, good thing that she’ll spend the weekend with the detective, and maybe that’ll help her get over this nervousness, help her adjust to the idea of Erwin as a frequent guest in Mike’s home once more. 

He goes up to the bedroom to get out of his work clothes and wash up, and when he comes back down, he takes a seat on a stool across the island from her, lazily watches her prepping produce. 

“Wanna know what’s going on in the world?” He asks, phone in hand. At her nod, he feeds her secondhand censored news, just enough to keep her abreast on life outside of their home, but not so much as to add fuel to the fire of her anxiety. His calm voice quells until the doorbell has her bunching her shoulders up, tense again.

She welcomes Erwin in just the way he told her how to, first offering him a choice of beverage. The detective asks for a cocktail by name, making Nanaba smile up at him; back before all of this, she’d made her living bartending, and Erwin’s acknowledgement of her trade helps to relax her, even a bit. The meal is all ready except for the main protein simmering away in the cast iron dutch oven on the stove, and Erwin pokes his head into the kitchen for a moment to tell her to take her time while he and Mike talk. Twenty minutes later, she calls them in, welcoming them to a table spread with charcuterie, bowls of fine julienne vegetables and sliced fruits, roasted tubers, a modest beef bourguignon, and a piping hot tray of cake. It’s not the most cohesively themed dinner, but Nanaba had wanted to present Erwin with her  _ best _ dishes so Mike had approved it, wanting to encourage her as she becomes the queen of the kitchen. 

Overall, she plays hostess well. A few times, Mike witnesses her instabilities getting the better of her, so he reaches over and scruffs the back of her neck, pressing in his thumb with a circular motion meant to soothe. She always melts beneath the touch, and when Mike eventually excuses her to clean up and make a pot of coffee, he can see clear relief in the slump of her shoulders. 

When the time comes to inform her of her shift in weekend plans however, all that hard-won relief readily gives way to burning nervousness. He’s glad he kept it a surprise not only to prevent her from fretting over it all week, but also because she gets so worked up in that moment that she cries. Even though he’s enjoying her emotional torment, Mike tugs her into his bosom and shushes her with care, letting his hands eclipse her spine as he pets her. Separation anxiety is easily understood: this’ll be their first real time apart since he’d brought her home. Going to work for a shift here and there has been their only time apart, but this is an entire forty hours of no contact, no communication. While he knows she’ll be safe in Erwin’s care, he worries for her mental wellbeing. He may like to cause her body physical pain, but those bruises and welts all heal with time and leave little trace of their existence; Nanaba is a quasar upon her own mind, destroying herself in ways Mike could never. No one can be as cruel to his girl as she is to herself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really Really wanted this fic to be less than 20k but AS YOU CAN SEE it refuses me.


	5. Fear, Future, and Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike fears for his honey girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings time: possessive behaviour! cunnilingus! belt spankings! :)

At Erwin’s gentle behest, Mike gets back in town in time to enjoy the Sunday lunch his thrall prepares. If Erwin’s meaning to distract Mike from the knowledge that Nanaba will soon be a pawn, he’s unsuccessful. The three of them sit at the table on Erwin’s patio with passingly pleasant conversation until Mike sends Nanaba inside to clean up after the meal. They watch her carry in the tray of dishes before looking at each other.

“You’re so defensive,” Erwin says first, as soon as Nanaba is through the sliding door and out of earshot. 

“I don’t like any of this,” Mike shoots back, too sharp for the occasion. But it’s true. He’d spent the better part of yesterday skulking through the crime-saturated districts of Atlanta, chasing Ackerman’s whereabouts on ghost whispers alone. He almost wonders if Erwin gave a warning that Mike would be around, because the boy’d been nearly impossible to track down. It was only after the sunset that he was able to set eyes on Ackerman speeding down an alley on his motorcycle, and it was  _ another  _ hour after that until Ackerman followed Mike into a shopping mall to chat.

Erwin offers no apologies or sympathies, and honestly Mike’s not really expecting it. The redirect he provides is better than any ‘sorry’ anyway. “Your girl was very sweet and obedient, you should know. She cooked for me, too.”

“Good,” Mike grunts, sitting back in his chair. The last thing he needs, on top of  _ everything, _ is to learn of Nanaba misbehaving in his absence. But Mike banishes the redirect, asking, “Suppose you wanna know what I think of Ackerman?”

The detective looks amused at Mike’s mood. “I’d like that, yes.”

Mike sighs and runs his fingers through his greasy hair, exhausted. This is Erwin though, so the words come easily enough without any fear of judgement. He talks about the difficulties of finding Ackerman first, wanting to highlight the unpleasantness of the search,  _ as if _ that would ever inspire guilt in Erwin. It was only after Mike was confident that Levi knew he was being tailed, that Mike had turned around and led them to a Macy’s in a good part of the city. Like a skittish cat, Ackerman had kept some distance as Mike casually strolled through displays of delicate ceramics, until finally the two of them had converged as Mike studied a fine teacup set for his girl. Something to reward her with after the weekend. 

Ackerman was not very giving to any of Mike’s inquiries, but at least he acknowledged the sacrifice being made in helping him and Erwin in a rude and roundabout way, so that’s that. 

Mike tells Erwin about the stilted conversation in Macy’s, then gives his opinions on the little bastard. All while he is explaining, Mike’s fears are woven through every insult of Ackerman, and he knows that Erwin’s intelligent enough to hear all the words that Mike refuses to say aloud. In the end, Erwin reaches across the table and takes Mike’s hand, lacing their fingers together, looking Mike in the eyes for several long moments. 

Their bond thrives. Mike can feel it tugging in his chest, keeping them bound to one another. There is comfort in its certainty.

And after all, Erwin’s only involved with human trafficking because of Mike.

The situation with Ackerman rustles Mike up, not because of Erwin taking an interest in the thug, but because this interest now requires his honey girl to be put in danger. She’s been in his home less than two months, and she’s a good girl for him but she’s not completely housebroken, nor is she even handling a large portion of responsibility. So Mike is afraid that she will crumble down under the weight of decisions outside of his home, away from his watchful eye. 

“He will keep her safe,” Erwin whispers, brushing his thumb over Mike’s knuckles. “You’ll see. After she spends some time with him, she’ll tell you how caring he is.”

Mike wants to scoff-- that little  _ gremlin _ he spoke to? He squeezes Erwin’s hand. “You like ‘em soft now?”

“Oh, I said he is caring. I didn’t say he was soft.” And there’s a hint of fondness in his voice when Erwin murmurs, “He is a mystery to me and I am intrigued.”

From the corner of his eye, Nanaba appears, but neither he nor Erwin separate themselves. She comes and silently collects up the pitcher and glasses of sweet tea, taking them back to the kitchen for washing.

For once, Mike is entirely grateful that he doesn’t need to explicitly detail his emotions to Erwin, and from there, their conversation lightens, finding less stressful topics to brush over. There’s loose news to recount, family gossip, general workplace complaints. They don’t have to talk about how attached Mike is growing to his thrall, how destroyed he would be if anything happened to her. They don’t have to talk about the fact that Mike’s attachments are few and deep, and that his anger is a hellstorm harbinger of destruction, and that he is a fierce protector of those he holds close. They don’t have to talk about the things that Erwin already knows.

His Nanaba will go back to Atlanta, but without him. She won’t be directly underhand anymore. His orders will still stand, but she will have to carry them out by herself. Mike hadn’t planned on doing this so soon, but he’ll need to get her a mobile phone, and if his thrall is gonna be going out, she’s gonna need new clothes, too. Heretofore in Mike’s possession, she’s worn his shirts and his old boxer briefs, fashioned akin to that t-shirt dress fad from not too long ago. If it’s time to get clothes, then he’ll have to shop with her, find out what she likes, make sure she gets a couple sizes larger than before. Nice new clothes, articles to grow into as her body grows accustomed to stability. 

After they get her some clothes, he’s gonna need to introduce her to his family. Mike has given them not even a hint of a relationship, let alone one serious enough for them to believe that Nanaba is living with him of her own volition. The big reveal will, no doubt, be a bomb and it’ll make him the talk of the family for a while, but it needs to be done. Unless something bad happens with Ackerman, Mike can feel it in his bones that his honey girl is with him to stay, so it’s best to get her integrated now. Nanaba is such a good girl-- she’ll be his wife soon.

Mike grips Erwin’s hand. “I’ll trust you.”

“Thank you,” Erwin says, and his tone brims with sincerity. For all of his manipulative tendencies and cold exterior, Erwin allows Mike this rare glimpse of soft-shelled vulnerability. 

“I owed you, but more than that.” Mike looks down, then back toward the sliding door, waiting for his thrall to appear. “I’ve found happiness, and I want you to be happy, too.”

Nanaba rounds the corner as the words leave his mouth. Instead of responding, Erwin lifts their joined hands and ghosts Mike’s thumb with a kiss, and when he speaks, he says, “Your girl missed you, Mike.”

Raising from the patio table, Mike meets Nanaba at the sliding door and steps into the house, closing the glass behind himself. 

“Come on, girl, let’s get your stuff packed up,” he gestures, beckoning her to follow. He leads the way to the guest room she’s been occupying for the weekend, and when Nanaba enters behind him, she closes the door. He turns to look at her, watches with a curious expression as she comes closer.

“I missed you,” she whispers, looking down, suddenly so shy once more, just like when he first brought her home. 

“What’s wrong, honey?” With care, Mike reaches between them and brushes his fingertips across her cheek, down to her narrow chin, tipping it up. Nanaba looks at him and then closes the distance, curling herself against his bosom.

“Honey,” he coos, wrapping her up tightly in his arms.  _ God, _ it feels so fucking good to have her  _ right here, _ he doesn’t want to let her go any time soon. Kissing the top of her head, he whispers, “I missed you, too, honey.”

She squeezes him with all the strength in her spindly limbs; he returns the gesture with a crushing bear hug that makes her squawk and then giggle, so he does it again, loving the little moan of pain that passes her lips.

“Mike,” Nanaba murmurs, tipping her head back so that she can lay her open mouth on his adam’s apple. “Mike… my period’s over.”

He hums, loving the neediness that manifests in her words. They’ve spent the weekend yearning in the same ways.

“Can we…,” she trails off, too shy to say the words.

“Fuck?” He supplies. He can feel her nod. “I don’t have a condom with me. We’ll have to wait until we’re home.”

With her face buried in his chest, Nanaba’s whine is too muffled to be coherent. It’s unlike her to backtalk, though. Taking hold of her nape, Mike pulls her head back enough to see her lips.

“What was that?”

Nanaba bites her bottom lip and mumbles, “I really want you.”

“If you think acting out is going to get you what you want, think again.” But even though the words are stern, Mike can feel a smile tugging at his mouth. He wants his thrall just as badly, but self-control is valuable.

His girl makes no attempt at repentance save for gracelessly getting down on her knees and grasping his belt buckle. There’s pink splattered over her cheeks as she gazes up at him as if waiting for permission.

“Honey,” he whispers, cupping her jaw. Nanaba looks up at him with all the trust in the world, and here Mike is about to send her back out into Atlanta with a complete stranger just for Erwin’s sake. Would it hurt to give in, just this once? They’ve missed one another, would it be so bad to show her the breadth of his emotions here on the bed in Erwin’s guest room?

“Please,” she whispers, so sweetly, and he’s a little lost.

“Not like this.” Mike gently coaxes her off the floor. “On the edge of the bed, honey. On your back.”

The cat that got the cream, Nanaba readily obeys, looking all too pleased with this turn of events. Mike’ll get that expression wiped away and replaced with a twist of ecstasy. It’s his turn to kneel.

He puts his mouth on her and devours her slowly. His girl is always on the quieter side during sex, but this time he urges her to perfect silence, their ears filled with only the purling of his tongue inside of her. She tastes divine and feels like luxury in his mouth; someday when she’s ready, he’ll fuck her when she’s fertile like this and cum inside of her to create new life, but  _ only _ when she’s ready, when they’re  _ both _ ready. There’s still so much between them that needs to be learned, whether her lessons in becoming a good wife or his understanding of her innerworkings. They’re good together but being good together doesn’t automatically mean they’ll make a good family; if their relationship isn’t solid and comfortable, isn’t settled into the foundation, then adding a child to the mix will be too much weight and cracks will form. A little bit of waiting will prove advantageous in the end.

Mike is still teaching his girl how to be  _ still _ and  _ quiet _ in the face of her roaring anxiety. He can’t imagine that adding the stress of pregnancy will bode well, regardless of what his brother says pregnancy did for his sister-in-law. Maybe for some women, carrying a child can have only positive effects, but Mike isn’t willing to take that risk with his honey girl. He’s got to reign himself in and keep himself from getting her pregnant too soon, no matter how much he adores the idea of it. They’ll keep tracking her periods in the planner and using condoms in her fertile period, and he’s just going to have to suck it up and put  _ this _ desire on the backburner. Why it’s rearing its head in the first place is a mystery to him, because logically, he  _ knows _ that it’s too soon for them to bring an entire human being into existence. 

Gripping her thighs, Mike kneads his thumbs into the softening flesh and squeezes, hiking her open a little wider so that he can bury his face between her legs, nose and all. The rooting garners out a poorly-stifled moan from his thrall and she jerks around in his grasp, struggling to control her body. Pressing his mouth up against her opening, nuzzling at her clit, he’s rewarded with her tensing body, a sudden slick loosening of her cunt, and then her body unwinding like a spool of ribbon on the wind. 

But he’s not done with her yet. He releases her thighs so that he can unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans, and then he dips his fingers inside of her, gathering up the proof of her orgasm and slathering his cock. Slowly, he begins to jerk off as he dives back into her sex, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his shoulders and pull him closer. He can feel her quivering around his tongue, all the blood that rushed down to greet him making her nerves hypersensitive. 

His head is empty now, striving for the climax of his pleasure, focusing only on the taste of her, feel of her, the breathiness as she whispers his name and bucks against him, wanting more of his mouth. Hands slide into his hair, shyly grasping at first and then helplessly tugging. He gives her everything he’s got.

When the wave hits him, he groans, enclosing his fist around the head of his cock, catching his ejaculate so as not to soil the pristine rug upon which he kneels in service to his thrall. Only vaguely is he aware of Nanaba sliding off the bed and tugging on his arm.

She takes his sticky hand and enthusiastically brings it to her mouth, but after the first big lick, her face scrunches with disgust. Mike, still wading through his orgasm haze, laughs, a little more in love with his girl. 

“It’s okay,” he assures her, then wipes his hand on his t-shirt. It needs to be washed anyway. 

;;;

Despite the way his honey clings to him after the weekend away, Mike’s fears gnaw at the corner of his mind. He spends the next couple of weeks getting Nanaba ready to go to-and-from his home on a regular basis, from getting her a phone to going shopping for nice, new clothes. Errands start simple: sending her to the grocery store by herself. It shouldn’t be that difficult; she lived alone back before all of this, and she took somewhat okay care of herself, so that would have included getting fed. Not that she took the  _ best _ care, Mike knows, but she wasn’t totally incapable. Besides, his thrall is partially distracted from the anxiety of going to the store without him by the fact that she gets to put on makeup, and he can see how much she missed playing with cosmetics. 

It’s the face of the lost girl he met back before, painted and unnatural, and he definitely didn’t miss it.

Construction season gets underway as the short-lived spring melts rapidly into early Georgia summer, meaning that work picks up once more. Mike makes a few offhand comments to his family about working less hours or at least taking on the less time-consuming projects. Someone jokingly asks if he’s got a girlfriend and he manages to weasel his way out of answering, not yet wanting to deal with family drama on top of everything else.

Spending more time working means that Nanaba must take on more responsibilities without him. For the most part, she does okay, so he rewards her appropriately, filling the mug display at an accelerated rate. Nanaba even surprises him one morning, asking him over breakfast if she can go alone to the bookstore and purchase the next novel in a series she had been reading, back in Atlanta. It’s the first time  _ she’s asked _ to go anywhere alone. Wanting to encourage this sort of initiative, Mike gives her permission to buy up to three books of her choosing. That night when he comes home after his weekly ritual drink with Erwin, he finds his thrall sleeping on the sofa with a book fanned open on her chest.

Still… the day is approaching for her to make that first trip to Atlanta. As it draws near, Mike finds himself on edge, nitpicking at Nanaba’s behaviour and punishing her more. She takes his abuses as if she’s actually  _ earned _ them and he doesn’t know how to deal with that, with her taking blame off of him.

;;;

Mike comes home late, and the only light in their flat comes bouncing around the corner of the living room from the quiet television. The sound of the front door closing must draw his thrall out from her slumber because she comes rushing, clicking on the living room light as she moves quickly.

“Hey,” she greets, coming to embrace him. “I made you--”

“Makeup, Nanaba,” Mike interrupts, pushing her back with a huge hand encompassing her shoulder. He slowly brings his forefinger to the delicate skin of her eyelid, gently pressing in and sliding his finger down the apple of her cheek, smearing eyeshadow with foundation and blush. “You supposed to wear this shit at home?”

A startled squeak erupts from her and she tenses from head to toe. He doesn’t have to scold her. His bulk alone could be interpreted as a threat because of how large he is in comparison to her. She’s eclipsed by his shadow. 

Nanaba bites her lip, tucking in her excuses, lowering her gaze. She shakes her head.

“I oughta lay you over the table.” Mike smudges the eyeshadow between two fingers in exaggerated disgust. Usually, he gives her some leeway in removing cosmetics, but today he knows she’s been home for  _ hours _ already-- she should’ve cleaned her face as soon as she got home, knowing that she wouldn’t be going out again. It’s the second time this week with the same infraction, so now he knows that he’s got to punish her because she’s not in the right headspace. It’s up to him to remind her of her proper place. Menacingly, he promises, “And I will.”

His thrall doesn’t try to apologise her way out of trouble, even though he can see fear in her eyes.

“Girl.” 

She flinches at the anger he allows to seep into the single syllable. 

“You know what you’ve done wrong.”

Her bottom lip trembles just the slightest. “I do.”

“Get the belt,” Mike orders. He wants this to hurt; he wants her to remember this sting every time she paints up her pretty face so that she remembers to wash off the nonsense as soon as possible, to remember every time she crosses the threshold.

He waits at the table for her; she’s been disobedient but she’s still such a good girl that she doesn’t make him wait more than a few moments. It’s not been long since the last time he bent her over and tanned her hide, yet there’s already accumulated lust in his blood when she hands him the worn leather. All of his fears and frustrations bubble up as he watches her lift her shirt, exposing her little bottom for punishment, fueling his desire to set her straight.

“Cross your arms over your chest and lean your body over the table,” he instructs, but her body seems to remember this plenty well. With tight, anxious movements, his thrall lays forward, resting her upper body against heavy oak, raising her poor little ass up defenseless for a lashing. 

Mike steps in behind her, letting his clothed hips press into her rump as he splays his left hand on the small of her back and runs it along her spine. With his right hand, he tickles her with the looped end of the folded belt. Her sensitive flinches are accompanied by tiny gasps. He can’t wait for her voice to tear between them.

“My Nanaba, you know your rules.” Mike leans down, his body like a tortoise shell over her back so that he can wetly kiss her nape. Against the skin, he explains, “I don’t want your excuses. I want to set you straight.”

Below him, she turns her head to the side, whispering, “Please.”

“You need this.”

“I need this,” she agrees. 

Mike knows that his thrall requires these tight, unforgiving boundaries. He knows that she does not function well with wiggle room because that is simply room for error. 

“You know I’ll take care of you,” Mike murmurs sweetly, like a promise. “You know I won’t leave you to find your way alone.” Because she was lost and he found her among a collection of marks and he claimed her, made her his. She relies on him to guide her and this is how to best turn her attention back on him.

Standing erect once more, Mike tests the weight of the belt, a well known feel in his hand from years of daily wear. Now, it’s reserved only for his girl, a stimulus that keeps her in check. This belt has become a herald of pain only. Mike isn’t going to entirely undo her tonight, though he needs to show her where she belongs, remind her of the rules. Only a handful of licks are required, he thinks, but licks with startling intensity and no reprieve between, a punishment that burns her up like a firearm burning gunpowder in an instant, leaving smoke to cool.

“Five, girl. Breathe,” he reminds her, and then leaves her with apprehensive muscles tensing and relaxing in alternation. It’s the moment suspended between them, finger on the trigger, half-pulled, waiting for the deadly click to set off the handheld explosion with which a bullet’s propulsion depends. Drawing the moment too long will only bring her anxiety to screaming reality, so Mike draws his right arm back and swings the belt down across the backs of her upper thighs.

Nanaba yelps, jumping and then sinking on shaking knees, but she doesn’t have to be told to correct that posture and take what else he’s got for her. She looks like she wants to bury her head in the table varnish. His second swing comes back-handed, in the opposite direction so that the left thigh takes the brunt of his abuse. She doesn’t jump this time, but he can see her body erupting into tremors, her back breaking out a fine layer of sweat. For her sake, he wraps it up quickly, delivering three rapidfire lashes on the most supple curve of her ass. Just as he wanted, the space after that final lick is filled with her pained relief, sweet weeping pouring out animal-scared from her throat, the type of deep, guttural cry that unconsciously escapes in the face of torment.

Once again making a tortoise shell of himself, Mike kisses her shoulders, licking up a stripe of salty sweat just so he can hear her conflicted moan. 

“What’s got you so distracted that you’re forgetting your rules, girl?” 

“Please don’t make me say it,” she whispers, clearly ashamed by something. But he’s gonna pry it out of her, like a good master. 

“If you want me to fuck you and make you feel good after you made me hurt you, then you’ll say it.”

_ “Please,” _ she begs. 

In a blink, Mike is pulling away from her body and hailing down lashes, melting her down to a weeping puddle on the floor, unable to stand any longer. No more verbal threats are necessary, his girl screaming out, “I was thinking about Erwin!”

His hand is a fist in her hair and he hauls her up to her knees. It’s been two fucking weeks since her weekend away from home. “Was Erwin’s care so different that you can’t keep  _ my _ rules in mind? Do I need to retrain you already, girl?”

Her hands closed around his wrist to no avail. “No, please! I know my rules!”

Mike throws her down at his feet and hits her ass with the looped leather belt one more time, then bends and circles it around her neck, feeds the loose end through the buckle, pulls the makeshift choke chain taut. Wrapping the loose end around his hand, Mike puts her in position to stay on her knees or else cut off her own oxygen. 

“You need to fucking think about your rules, girl,” Mike spits. He demands in a shout, “Who owns you!?”

“You,” she trembles out the whimper, vibrato soaking the syllable. 

“And who takes care of you?”

“You!”

“Then why the  _ fuck _ are you thinking about Erwin?” Mike can’t get a lid on the possessive vines climbing his spine, deadly garnet blossoms obstructing his optic nerve. He’s seeing only red jealousy. In the face of his fear, he’s choosing to act out in violence. 

But he can’t let himself get out of hand. For Nanaba’s sake, and for the sake of their future, he’s going to have to get a grip.

Mike slowly releases the belt and Nanaba crumples at his feet, and he’s right down there with her in the next moment, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her up against his chest. He can’t do this again, can’t take his emotions out on her like this.

Sending her out to Atlanta on Erwin’s errands is going to be harder than Mike thought.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading.


End file.
